William Thorup

Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer, Animator, and VFX Artist

Category: All

For Liberty | Illustration and Time Lapse

A small gift to the men and women who serve for the cause of our liberties, rights, and freedoms. I also would like to thank all those around the world who fight for these causes, whether you fight for the United States or not. Every human being deserves these blessings in their lives, and today, we remember the price that must sometimes be paid for those blessings.

This painting took about 4 hours to complete. The entire painting was done in Krita.

I focused on the color pallet for this painting. I wanted something a bit abstract, but not so abstract as to distract the viewer of the story being told. I wanted a sad and somber tone to the image, so, I stuck to cool colors. Primarily blue, greens, and grays. Red and white were my highlight colors. Then, I controlled my satruation in specific areas, in order to bring focus to the parts of the painting I wanted the viewer to see first. I feel overall the composition is good, maybe a bit crowded, but still attractive.

July 4, 2014
Weekly Sketch Review | Turkey Dinner

Another round of highlight worthy sketches for another week. Enjoy! If you wish to stay a while, this week I wanted to talk a bit about persistence and consistence. This topic comes from encountering some emotionally down points when drawing and painting recently, and an article posted by Wacom. A short interview article with an amazing Disney artist, Aaron Blaise, about his “Four Tips for Artists Who Want to Succeed”.

The article touches on two things that I have discussed before, but are so important that, talking about them again will help me reaffirm their importance for myself, and hopefully others. I will try to tie these into my feelings as of late, which I believe many artists, aspiring artists, go through on their, long, artistic journeys.

Persistence

This is my new favorite. I have found myself to be stubborn from time to time, more often then I think probably. Thankfully, this is a blessing, more than a curse most time. With that stubbornness comes the drive to continue to learn new things, and to learn them well. This has been very fulfilling in most of my endeavors, including art and programming.

This stubbornness does not come without it’s down side though. The most noticeable adverse effect that I see is burning out. When I am pushing through a project, and I am churning out good results, then the end of the project rolls around, one of two things usually happen. The feeling that I have done enough, and I can take a brake (the biggest lie!), or, the feeling of zero inspiration. Of just not wanting to do what I was doing anymore.

These two points are where I think persistence contrast stubbornness in the extreme. When one is persistent, they will continue with something with confidence in a good result. Okay, stubbornness will get us that far as well. Now here is the difference. Moderation. To push through a project is one thing, to push through a project at a steady pace is another. This leads to my other favorite point.

Consistency

Ah consistency. For those of us who feel we have a million things we are doing everyday (whether its true or not), consistency is like the Holy Grail. We write to-do lists, we setup reminders on our Google Calender, we try to develop habits, and 90% of the time, we fail. It’s not that we aren’t getting things done, we just are not reaping the benefits of being consistent.

My personal experience with consistency has always been good, when I am consistent. My abilities, with whatever I am consistently doing, obviously increase. I feel better about what I am doing, and I can’t wait to see what I produce.

So, what’s the problem with trying to be consistent, and why is it so hard for me to do? And, why do I go overboard with persistence? I have been able to narrow it down to a few things so far.

Turkey Dinners Always put Me to Sleep

It not necessarily just the turkey, but instead, how much food I put on my plate. Unfortunately, I am not talking about my dietary habits in this instance. Earlier I mentioned people who have a million different things they are trying to do, I am one of those people, and I don’t like it either. Problem number one. I have always been curious, and I was raised to try things, and fall in love with what I try. Problem number two. There is the complex anxiety of knowing that I wont be able to accomplish everything that I wish to, because there just isn’t time to do it. Just like that Turkey dinner, you may be able to get it all onto your plate, but it doesn’t mean you are going to be able to cram it all down.

The closest artistic analogy that I can think of to fix this is to reduce your pallet. Pick out the colors that you think will tell the story the best. Now by applying that idea to what I put on my plate for dinner… Maybe I should prioritize the things that will define me best as a human being, and tell my story in the best way possible, to future generations. Easier said than done. How do I know what will tell my story the best? I don’t know. Maybe a bit too deep, but I believe it is something we should all consider on our artistic, or our non-artistic, journeys.

Take the time to look through some of Aaron’s great instructional videos on his website. I just watched a video about straight and curved lines, nothing new for me, but definitely something I am not consistent with in my line work.

July 3, 2014
Atari Jaguar | Flappy Mcfur Pre-Release Box & CD Art

My brother and I have been working hard on the Atari Jaguar stuff, and new ideas, art, writting, and code, trickles into each and every project everyday. Flappy Mcfur is the first fruits of our efforts.

Obviously a Flappy Bird clone for the Atari Jaguar, this program really was just a training ground for me in C programming. It was fun getting the basic assets together, and code the various aspects of game. From menus, to score keeping, and movement of Flappy McFur. Speaking of movement, it is very rudementary, and the next version will have movement more akin to Flappy Bird.

The box art and CD art were both put together in Inkscape, with screenshots from the actual game. Currently we are not sure if we will actually be making and selling physical versions of the game, but I though it might be nice to give people who download it, the opportunity to put together something nice for it if they wish.

The Pre-Release trailer was a blast to put together. I wanted something that would build up, and then let the viewer drop, realizing it isn’t anything too amazing. I really like the way the fly around with the console came out. I haven’t used lattices in 3D animation for a long time, and they poved really effective for bending the flowing text around the various contours of the Jaguar console and controller. The footage of gameplay was captured using the Virtual Jagauar emulator, and it plays almost exactly how it does on the actual Jaguar hardware. It’s such a simple game, why wouldn’t it? Also, this video, and the next one, were both completely done in Blender, with 2D assets in the Gimp.

On another small note, Bryce noticed that out YouTube subscription counter, on the JagCorner channel, was almost to 64, and he came up with the idea for a little video to celebrate the 64th subscriber and the 64-bit glory of the Atari Jaguar. Check it out, and subscribe to our channel to keep up with other video content we will be producing in the future.

July 2, 2014
Weekly Sketch Review | Happy Monsters

Warm ups. I am trying to do them more often, and often find them boring, and these are the wonderful results of trying to make them interesting.

While loosening up the shoulder, I decided to take the random scribbles and turn them into fun loving monsters. Don’t you “Lurv” summer too?

June 26, 2014
Comic Inking and Coloring

Ah… a blog post. It has been a while, and I should be doing this more. If you are a regular to my blog, I apologize. There is quite a bit of work that I have been doing lately that has been taking much of time. I guess that it is a matter of priorities, and I should make my posts of higher priority.

About a month ago, I finished coloring work on a comic book project that was poorly executed by the director. By some miracle, the comic made it to Comic Con Fan Experience in Salt Lake City, but only sold a few copies.

Unfortunately, I am not too proud of the final work, mainly because of the story (or the lack thereof), and won’t be including it in my portfolio. That project did, however, push me a bit further into the realm of inking. Along with a Thor Media internal project, and the want to practice some simple inking and coloring, I have produced three separate portraits. Which I can say that I am proud of.

I used Krita to produce all three images, and it took about a few hours to produce the portraits. The latest version of Krita includes a nice set of tools specifically for inking, and it is a joy to use them.

Being involved in that comic book project was a bit of an eye opener for me though. I was able to get a really good idea of how much effort needs to go behind a single issue, which is really good for Thor Media. We have been able to price ourselves correctly, in case we run into others who wish us to help produce a comic book.

More importantly, that project turned me on to the idea of turning some of my writing into comic book form. I was going through some of newer and older stories recently, and I may pick one or two, and convert them into comic books.

May 26, 2014
“Look What I Found” – Illustration

I have been painting allot lately. Unfortunately, most of it I am not able to post on my personal blog or portfolio yet. I am involved in comic book project for someone else, and I am doing concept work for some films for Thor Media. So, at the the end of the day, I am all “drawn” out, and looking forward to dinner and an episode of Star Trek. But, I have been recording most of my work, so, hopefully that work will transfer into time lapse videos for everyone to watch and enjoy in later posts.

With that being said, I am working on personal projects when I have the time, especially Jaguar stuff. And that is focus of today’s post.

This piece is a concept piece for an opponent in the Reversi game project called “Intellection”. In story mode, the main character will face off in a game of Reversi against all the gods in the current lore of the story. The lore consists of gods that are personifications of the different aspects of time. (i.e. past, present, future, eternity, etc…). I won’t spoil the story too much, but the primary goal of the main player is to return time to a normal state, by beating the gods in the game of Reversi. Sounds a bit better than an average game of Reversi right?

When I am not drawing for work, I am working on game design documents and assets for our Atari Jaguar games. I really enjoy thinking about a game and its various functions. From game play, style, length, world, music, and characters. There is so much to consider when creating a game with a narrative, not including all the technical stuff, and it really is a challenge.

We have 4 working projects (read more at http://bitjag.com/ out developer page). At this point I have two of the shorter games 75% fleshed out on paper. There will obviously be changes to certain details, but the documents give us a great starting point, and a fall back, if we don’t wish to explore possibilities and just get things done.

March 30, 2014
Iron Door Film | Concept Art

Through Thor Media, I was tasked with producing 3 pieces of concept art for our client, Adaptive Studios. The pieces were based on a semi-final script, with some direction from the director, and director of photography.

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The first piece was strictly an environment piece, based on a possible traveling exhibit around the 1940’s. This pieces primary purpose was to show potential investors that some effort and thought was being put into the production, to show that there was talent to help create the world of the story. So I tried to focus on the details of the objects in the tent, rather than characters, to see if I could just tell a basic story with the objects in the scene. This piece could be used for actual set design during production, but most likely not.

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The next painting was done for an area in the script called “Thieves Cross”. And old ghost town in the story where the main characters end up in, searching for clues. The town was originally a settlement for criminals, so, it didn’t have much in the way of development, except for the old chapel. I wanted to make the chapel the center of the image, so I set up my composition to perform this task. I used a dutch angle to add a bit of uneasiness to the scene. Like the painting before, I started with a 3D base done in Blender, and then moved into Krita for the final paint over. I have to say, working in 3D to begin with helps immensely with perspective and laying out the basic composition. It easily shave 1 or 2 hours off of each painting.

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The last painting was almost an illustration. Again, whether or not Art’s room will look anything like the painting in the final film is one thing, so, instead I focused on the mood and lighting of the moment given to me from the script. I feel that I got the composition right on in this painting. Every part of this painting just fell into place. For me, the color, lighting, composition, characters, mood. etc… just works! I love it!

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This was an awesome opportunity for me. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to work on some pre-production art work. I love to see written stories come to life visually, and to have some control over how that happens is incredibly gratifying. This work has spurred Thor Media to leverage mine and Michael Buhler’s skills in producing art. We are currently putting together service packages in the areas of Storyboards and Concept art. They got me working on the Thor Media website and a booklet that we can pass out to potential clients. This is something that I have wanted to do for a while, and I hope it turns out well.

February 22, 2014
Another Zelda Remix – Another Twinrova

I haven’t been taken part in a CGHUB.com character forge challenge in a while, and I am glad the Micheal Buhler pointed me to this one when it came around.

As you may recall, this isn’t the first time that I have tried t remix Twinrova from the Legend of Zelda games. Last time I decided to remix the character for the tron universe, and I feel that it came out okay. This latest version of the challenge had us working towards a sci-fi edge. So, due to the lack of creativity, or because I just like the character, I decided to give Twinrova another try. I used Krita for this piece, and it took about 4 hours from start to finish.

This time I wanted to give Twinrova a darker feel, with a pinch of insanity to her mood. I leaned more towards the illustration side of things instead of character design, and I enjoyed painting the surrounding elements on this one. Making sure I rendered lighting accurately and learn how to render fire more acurrately where some other goals in this painting, and I think the results were good.

I wish that I could have spent a bit more time on this piece before the challenge was over with, but for the time I had and took, again, I am very pleased with the result.

January 31, 2014
Time Lapse Video | Unfinished Art of 2013

After the long silence, I return. Though I am not being silent on purpose, I do regret not being more consistent with my posts. I have several paintings I need to add to my portfolio and write about, so, stay around for those in the near future.

As for the screenshots and video below, I wanted to share some of the unfinished work from the previous year, and talk briefly about a book I am putting together of my work over the last few years. Plus, new site layout, not sure if I like it yet…

Whats featured in the video is just a fraction of the work that I never finish. There are tons of paintings and sketches, that I start to take to finished pieces, but never find the time, or I move onto other projects.

Something interesting though. Recently I have been putting together a book of all my work since I got off my mission (pics below), and I have noticed how much my finished work draws from my unfinished work. Especially anything that has a story to it. I don’t know if it’s because I get too attached to an idea, or what, but my finish work is a culmination of things that never finish. Allot of the games my brother and I have started over the last few years have been doing this, and many illustrations and other paintings are a result of this as well.

Speaking of this book I am putting together. I am always thinking about possible career roots in the future, and I thought it might be a good idea to collect all my work over the last few years and get it in a nice hard bound book of some sort. The book can be used as a portfolio, but the main motivation is to get a hard copy of my paintings.

Currently, none of my recent work has been printed. The inherent properties of the digital medium make it a bit more volatile. So, having a hard copy of my work, I believe, will be a good idea.

The book will be 8.5×11 format, full color. Right now I have about 90 pages put together, and, at this point, it looks like the book will break 125 pages. The book will include an Illustration, Thor Media, Ongoing and Personal work, and a sketchbook section. Along with a small index to quickly find pages that feature character design, story boarding, etc… So far this has been a huge project to undertake, but I think it will be well worth the time in the long run.

January 27, 2014
Weekly Sketch Review | End of the Year Sketch Dump

I have neglected my blog a bit over the past few months, but I have good excuses. My brother and I have started to get more involved in the Atari Jaguar community, and that has been taking most of my time. I have been picking up C code, so I can do some work with my brother on that end.

I am really looking forward to learning how to code games. So far I have found it very fulfilling, and I believe my are will be able to reach more people through it. It is quite an enabling skill to learn, and I would recommend to anyone to take the time to learn to code.

I also have had some things with work, and other end of year things in my personal life that take up my time. Through all of these things, though, I find time to draw, and having a very portable device that I am comfortable with make all the difference.

Because it has been so long since I have done a Weekly Sketch Review, this will probably be the last one of the year, and it is much more like a “Sketch Dump”. I hope there is something here you will enjoy and comment on. I have had several down points in my artistic endeavors over the past few months, at it has been a good thing for me to look at some of my work over the last few months. I am still progressing, even though my focus has shifted in a different direction.

This only represents the work that I have done on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8, I have done quite a bit in my Moleskin and on loose sheets of paper. There are also a few illustrations that I never finished, before I post those though, I would like to compile the screen recordings of them all, and put together a time lapse video. It is hard to believe how many pieces you start, but never finish.

December 13, 2013